The American Claimant
Page 20
CHAPTER XIV.
So Tracy went home to supper. The odors in that supper room seemed morestrenuous and more horrible than ever before, and he was happy in thethought that he was so soon to be free from them again. When the supperwas over he hardly knew whether he had eaten any of it or not, andhe certainly hadn't heard any of the conversation. His heart had beendancing all the time, his thoughts had been faraway from these things,and in the visions of his mind the sumptuous appointments of hisfather's castle had risen before him without rebuke. Even the plushedflunkey, that walking symbol of a sham inequality, had not beenunpleasant to his dreaming view. After the meal Barrow said,
"Come with me. I'll give you a jolly evening."
"Very good. Where are you going?"
"To my club."
"What club is that?"
"Mechanics' Debating Club."
Tracy shuddered, slightly. He didn't say anything about having visitedthat place himself. Somehow he didn't quite relish the memory of thattime. The sentiments which had made his former visit there so enjoyable,and filled him with such enthusiasm, had undergone a gradual change,and they had rotted away to such a degree that he couldn't contemplateanother visit there with anything strongly resembling delight. In facthe was a little ashamed to go; he didn't want to go there and find outby the rude impact of the thought of those people upon his reorganizedcondition of mind, how sharp the change had been. He would havepreferred to stay away. He expected that now he should hear nothingexcept sentiments which would be a reproach to him in his changed mentalattitude, and he rather wished he might be excused. And yet he didn'tquite want to say that, he didn't want to show how he did feel, or showany disinclination to go, and so he forced himself to go along withBarrow, privately purposing to take an early opportunity to get away.
After the essayist of the evening had read his paper, the chairmanannounced that the debate would now be upon the subject of the previousmeeting, "The American Press." It saddened the backsliding disciple tohear this announcement. It brought up too many reminiscences. He wishedhe had happened upon some other subject. But the debate began, and hesat still and listened.
In the course of the discussion one of the speakers--a blacksmith namedTompkins arraigned all monarchs and all lords in the earth for theircold selfishness in retaining their unearned dignities. He said that nomonarch and no son of a monarch, no lord and no son of a lord oughtto be able to look his fellow man in the face without shame. Shame forconsenting to keep his unearned titles, property, and privileges--at theexpense of other people; shame for consenting to remain, on any terms,in dishonourable possession of these things, which represented bygonerobberies and wrongs inflicted upon the general people of the nation. Hesaid, "if there were a lord or the son of a lord here, I would liketo reason with him, and try to show him how unfair and how selfish hisposition is. I would try to persuade him to relinquish it, take hisplace among men on equal terms, earn the bread he eats, and hold ofslight value all deference paid him because of artificial position, allreverence not the just due of his own personal merits."
Tracy seemed to be listening to utterances of his own made in talkswith his radical friends in England. It was as if some eavesdroppingphonograph had treasured up his words and brought them across theAtlantic to accuse him with them in the hour of his defection andretreat. Every word spoken by this stranger seemed to leave a blister onTracy's conscience, and by the time the speech was finished he felt thathe was all conscience and one blister. This man's deep compassion forthe enslaved and oppressed millions in Europe who had to bear with thecontempt of that small class above them, throned upon shining heightswhose paths were shut against them, was the very thing he had oftenuttered himself. The pity in this man's voice and words was the verytwin of the pity that used to reside in his own heart and come from hisown lips when he thought of these oppressed peoples.
The homeward tramp was accomplished in brooding silence. It was asilence most grateful to Tracy's feelings. He wouldn't have broken itfor anything; for he was ashamed of himself all the way through to hisspine. He kept saying to himself:
"How unanswerable it all is--how absolutely unanswerable! It is basely,degradingly selfish to keep those unearned honors, and--and--oh, hangit, nobody but a cur--"
"What an idiotic damned speech that Tompkins made!"
This outburst was from Barrow. It flooded Tracy's demoralized soulwith waters of refreshment. These were the darlingest words the poorvacillating young apostate had ever heard--for they whitewashed hisshame for him, and that is a good service to have when you can't get thebest of all verdicts, self-acquittal.
"Come up to my room and smoke a pipe, Tracy."
Tracy had been expecting this invitation, and had had his declinationall ready: but he was glad enough to accept, now. Was it possible that areasonable argument could be made against that man's desolating speech?He was burning to hear Barrow try it. He knew how to start him, and keephim going: it was to seem to combat his positions--a process effectivewith most people.
"What is it you object to in Tompkins's speech, Barrow?"
"Oh, the leaving out of the factor of human nature; requiring anotherman to do what you wouldn't do yourself."
"Do you mean--"
"Why here's what I mean; it's very simple. Tompkins is a blacksmith; hasa family; works for wages; and hard, too--fooling around won't furnishthe bread. Suppose it should turn out that by the death of somebody inEngland he is suddenly an earl--income, half a million dollars a year.What would he do?"
"Well, I--I suppose he would have to decline to--"
"Man, he would grab it in a second!"
"Do you really think he would?"
"Think?--I don't think anything about it, I know it."
"Why?"
"Why? Because he's not a fool."
"So you think that if he were a fool, he--"
"No, I don't. Fool or no fool, he would grab it. Anybody would. Anybodythat's alive. And I've seen dead people that would get up and go for it.I would myself."
This was balm, this was healing, this was rest and peace and comfort.
"But I thought you were opposed to nobilities."
"Transmissible ones, yes. But that's nothing. I'm opposed tomillionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position."
"You'd take it?"
"I would leave the funeral of my dearest enemy to go and assume itsburdens and responsibilities."
Tracy thought a while, then said:
"I don't know that I quite get the bearings of your position. You sayyou are opposed to hereditary nobilities, and yet if you had the chanceyou would--"
"Take one? In a minute I would. And there isn't a mechanic in thatentire club that wouldn't. There isn't a lawyer, doctor, editor, author,tinker, loafer, railroad president, saint--land, there isn't a humanbeing in the United States that wouldn't jump at the chance!"
"Except me," said Tracy softly.
"Except you!" Barrow could hardly get the words out, his scorn so chokedhim. And he couldn't get any further than that form of words; it seemedto dam his flow, utterly. He got up and came and glared upon Tracy in akind of outraged and unappeasable way, and said again, "Except you!"He walked around him--inspecting him from one point of view and thenanother, and relieving his soul now and then by exploding that formulaat him; "Except you!" Finally he slumped down into his chair with theair of one who gives it up, and said:
"He's straining his viscera and he's breaking his heart trying to getsome low-down job that a good dog wouldn't have, and yet wants to leton that if he had a chance to scoop an earldom he wouldn't do it. Tracy,don't put this kind of a strain on me. Lately I'm not as strong as Iwas."
"Well, I wasn't meaning to put--a strain on you, Barrow, I was onlymeaning to intimate that if an earldom ever does fall in my way--"
"There--I wouldn't give myself any worry about that, if I was you. Andbesides, I can settle what you would do. Are you any different from me?"
"Well--no."
"O,--er--why, certainly not."
"Are you as good? Come!"
"Indeed, I--the fact is you take me so suddenly--"
"Suddenly? What is there sudden about it? It isn't a difficult questionis it? Or doubtful? Just measure us on the only fair lines--the linesof merit--and of course you'll admit that a journeyman chairmakerthat earns his twenty dollars a week, and has had the good and genuineculture of contact with men, and care, and hardship, and failure, andsuccess, and downs and ups and ups and downs, is just a trifle thesuperior of a young fellow like you, who doesn't know how to do anythingthat's valuable, can't earn his living in any secure and steady way,hasn't had any experience of life and its seriousness, hasn't anyculture but the artificial culture of books, which adorns but doesn'treally educate--come! if I wouldn't scorn an earldom, what the devilright have you to do it!"
Tracy dissembled his joy, though he wanted to thank the chair-makerfor that last remark. Presently a thought struck him, and he spoke upbriskly and said:
"But look here, I really can't quite get the hang of your notions--yourprinciples, if they are principles. You are inconsistent. You areopposed to aristocracies, yet you'd take an earldom if you could. Am Ito understand that you don't blame an earl for being and remaining anearl?"
"I certainly don't."
"And you wouldn't blame Tompkins, or yourself, or me, or anybody, foraccepting an earldom if it was offered?"
"Indeed I wouldn't."
"Well, then, whom would you blame?"
"The whole nation--any bulk and mass of population anywhere, in anycountry, that will put up with the infamy, the outrage, the insult ofa hereditary aristocracy which they can't enter--and on absolutely freeand equal terms."
"Come, aren't you beclouding yourself with distinctions that are notdifferences?"
"Indeed I am not. I am entirely clear-headed about this thing. If Icould extirpate an aristocratic system by declining its honors, then Ishould be a rascal to accept them. And if enough of the mass would joinme to make the extirpation possible, then I should be a rascal to dootherwise than help in the attempt."
"I believe I understand--yes, I think I get the idea. You have no blamefor the lucky few who naturally decline to vacate the pleasant nest theywere born into, you only despise the all-powerful and stupid mass of thenation for allowing the nest to exist."
"That's it, that's it! You can get a simple thing through your head ifyou work at it long enough."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. And I'll give you some sound advice: when yougo back; if you find your nation up and ready to abolish that hoaryaffront, lend a hand; but if that isn't the state of things and you geta chance at an earldom, don't you be a fool--you take it."
Tracy responded with earnestness and enthusiasm:
"As I live, I'll do it!"
Barrow laughed.
"I never saw such a fellow. I begin to think you've got a good dealof imagination. With you, the idlest fancy freezes into a reality at abreath. Why, you looked, then, as if it wouldn't astonish you if you didtumble into an earldom."
Tracy blushed. Barrow added: "Earldom! Oh, yes, take it, if it offers;but meantime we'll go on looking around, in a modest way, and if youget a chance to superintend a sausage-stuffer at six or eight dollars aweek, you just trade off the earldom for a last year's almanac and stickto the sausage-stuffing."